this computers came with an operating system, gui-based and mouse. basic was a prg to use (not anymore line based). there were some new styles of basics coming up like gfa-basic, omikron-basic (atari st). 

and the most games were coded in assembler (68000 was a god processor for assembler). so you had to buy assembler, which was not included. 

Hattest du mal einen Plan, daß das zu etwas Größerem wird, daß du in größeren Teams arbeitest oder für Firmen Spiele entwickelst? Eigentlich nicht. Einmal, das war 1987 – da bekam ich einen Anruf aus der Schweiz, Firma Linel … keine Ahnung, ob’s die noch gibt. Die hatten eine Softwarefirma gegründet und hatten mich gefragt, ob ich nicht Lust hätte, mal ein Spiel für sie zu schreiben. Sie würden das vermarkten. Ja, irgendwo will man die Chance nutzen – das habe ich dann auch gemacht, auch auf dem C64. Das war ein bißchen aufwendiger – das Ganze war im Assembler geschrieben, nicht nur in Basic. Bei den anderen Spielen – beim ersten noch nicht, aber danach – waren immer so kleine Assembler-Routinen dabei, damit das Spiel ein bißchen flüssiger lief. Heutzutage programmiert keiner mehr so, weil es viel zu kompliziert wäre für die Maschinen, die es jetzt gibt. Damals war das noch recht übersichtlich – du hast einen Prozessor, und den konnte man schön programmieren. Das war recht einfach und primitiv mit den Maschinen damals. Das habe ich also komplett in Assembler geschrieben, ein Titelbild dazu gemalt – sehr aufwendig, wochenlange Arbeit, und es ist eigentlich nichts dabei herausgekommen. Das war eigentlich das einzige Spiel, das nie veröffentlicht wurde. MAZE PATROL hieß das, kennt kein Mensch … das war sicherlich eines von den aufwendigsten. Das war eine Enttäuschung. Das war auch das einzige, was ich für diese Firma gemacht habe. Nachdem es nie veröffentlicht wurde und ich es auch nie ins Netz gestellt habe, überlege ich mal, wo ich das jetzt finde …

Base for a lot of computers (GUI, Mac, Atari, Amiga, Next  etc) arcades and Arcades! Expensive but with a fantastic assembler-language. 

The listing culture is a hybrid between gutenberg galaxis and software. Software was often distributed in the mainframe time as source code ( c ). each system had a different set of hardware, processor. c and co were the platform. You could compile it for your system. 

The listing culture brought source code to the magazines and could be published. first with basic and co for homecomputers, later with checksums, than basic with assembler inlines, than only shortcodes. 

of course by typing in you could learn how to code and solve problems.

First developing on Atari ST (Assembler) but never published something except a demo for a bbs 1993 (First founded by two brothers). First not released ‘product’. A listing game for Happy Computer. 
Than switched to Macintosh (1995 ). Games in C . And than published over the net (website) or in Maganzines Disc-Magazines as Shareware. Paid first with checkes (almost impossible to get the money for 15$ games), so switched to real money and than to KAGI.com a first worldwide payment service.

Inbetween the author worked produced Flash-Games for advertising and ported a lot of games for Java (Applets) 1996 . 

Afterwards switched to Objective-C on MacOSX with a new name: la1n.ch. 

The after mainframe-area (based on c and co) was driven by coding near the hardware to get more speed. espacially in games. So Assembler was important. 

Fantasy computers are computer that are ‘inspired’ by real computers. Means their name sound like ZX81 > Tic80 but of course they are fast, programmable with lua and in the most of the cases have all integrated: spriteeditor, tile/background-editor, soundeffects editor and music editor. So they are really the dream of an 8bit-coder* with assembler, low memory, low graphics, no tools. 

Consoles inspired by old consoles but 100% new. They are somehow like the dream of this days. All dev. thing in one tool (graphics, sound, tiles, coding, levelediting)

at the end the vectors won. everything is now vector based in games (as an opengl or directx scene .-) more about this in the simple demo sinZ on pouet last year. therefore step back, step into the beginning 80ies with assembler and the vector console vectrex. and of course vecZ is a shootemup the most complicated (timing, a lot of action etc.) thing in those times.

archimedes with its risc-processor was still an exception. you could code in basic games like ! virus. 

la1n was the direct next step from imp89. New maschines and a new platform macosx. “Therefore i learned objective-c and coded real object orientated” and switched now to 3d games with opengl. The games were now more an more like gameengines and were object-orientated. But still hardcore coded. This change with the upcoming game engine like torque or unity. 

Therefore the last games from la1n.ch till now were again hardcore coded games like axe (atari 2600 vcs), vecZ (vectrex 2016). 

A little bit assembler … without saying it is assembler.

GameDevs are gamedeveloppers. The name tells also a lot about the idea behind. The most important thing was the technical difficulties. 

Games made for old hardware or emulators for hardware. Restrictions of yesterday.

Tracker were software - used especially on the Amiga. The most of the music was created in this type of music software. And the people behind the swiss games of the 80ies/90ies even created a tracker and the possibility to use the same framework also in games. 

The difference between Homecomputer and Businessmaschines was clear for the homecomputer users. Homecomputers were cheap, colorful, had sound, modern (GUI) and you could play with them. So they were designed for ‘fun’. And they came all in one - as one consumer product. So it was ‘identity’. Clear that the Amiga was first designed as an Console. On the hardware side the homecomputers didn't use the ugly intels like almost no Arcade-Console-Maschine did. The question here why? Perhaps because the most of the Software had to be coded in Assembler? 

One of the big question was: Is the Macintosh a Homecomputer? One answer it was to expensive for beeing a homecomputer. Perhaps the homecomputers were the cheap versions of the macintoshs. 

The game development process was splittet into different type of productions. Each part had its own tools like coding / assembler, images > paint tools and of course music with the trackers. 

very important also for the developers of games. it was knowhow. the ground language. 

check: was this really every online?

atronic.ch

The shareware modell was the only that worked in those days. Because to get a publisher for mac was almost impossible.